Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat weblog has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech and privacy/confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. The team is David Brophy, Birgit Clark, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Eleonora Rosati, Darren Smyth, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof. You're welcome to read, post comments and participate in our community. You can email the Kats here

For the half-year to 30 June 2015, the IPKat's regular team is supplemented by contributions from guest bloggers Suleman Ali, Tom Ohta and Valentina Torelli.

Regular round-ups of the previous week's blogposts are kindly compiled by Alberto Bellan.

Sunday, 23 April 2006

The IPKat brings news of a trio of incredulity-causing copyright stories:

* Information Weekreports that Google took down a stylised logo which it posted to celebrate the birthday of artist Joan Miro after the Miro family objected. They claimed that the logo, which was styled after Miro, but did not directly take any of his work, infringed their copyright and moral rights. Google expressed disappointment, but took the logo down.

The IPKat says that this event touches on the tricky subject of where style and ideas stop and expression begins. He can understand why the Miro family might want to retain control, but he notes that one moral right protects the artist’s reputation. The family’s reaction doesn’t seem to have done their reputation much good.

* P2Pasks whether the ‘the Royal Household, the British government, it's territories, or whoever arranged the celebrations’ of the Queen’s 80th birthday sought permission from AOL/TimeWarner for ‘Happy Birthday to You’ to be played, and if so, whether royalities were played.

The IPKat suspects that the piece is somewhat tongue in cheek, but it puts the IPKat in mind of Flanders and Swann’s account of the history of Greensleeves, where ‘the royalties go to royalty’.

* The Inquirerreports that RIAA have sued a family without a computer for filesharing. If this is correct, the IPKat is speechless.